Only 24 years old, Rosa had already been named one of Esquire magazine's 75 Brilliant Young Brits 2010 and had just won the Novella Contest. She told me about two new projects she was launching with photographer-writer Jethro Turner: a literary magazine called A Tale of Three Cities and a “bookclub” in a Paris bar called Le Carmen, where erstwhile strangers exchange books.

Rosa Rankin Gee: We came out with this very simple idea together and it's been a way of bringing like-minded people together, meeting really interesting bookish, creative, intelligent young people, so it's perfect. Why it's been a success it that it's been a marriage of events that are normally far more stilted. A conventional book club in the English sense is eight people in a living room talking about one book. And this is a lot looser, more relaxed. There's alcohol involved, there's a far bigger crowd, there's music, there's DJs. I think it has been a happy marriage of giving weight to a normal night out.

PWN : Are there more French or English people who attend?

Jethro Turner: We find it's about 50-50 French and English speakers but then there are Italians, Germans, Portuguese people, so we have a nice mix. Some people do ask, "do we have to bring a book in English?" We say no, we want to encourage people to bring as many different books as possible.

PWN : How did you get the word out about the Book Club?

Rosa : We've been really lucky with PR. It's a lovely, warm, kind of wholesome idea. You can get a lot of mileage out of it. We've been in the New York Times, we've been in all of the Paris blogs. We cultivate very good relationships with them.

PWN : You invented a concept called solidism. What is it?

Rosa : That goes hand in hand with the magazine and it works on two levels: the fact that we really value printed press and we're not going to have any of the content of the magazine online because we think that really affects the way we read and digest something. And also we believe in really specific things, you know? If you go on our website and click the triangle, you can read more about it.

PWN : I'm sorry but I own a Kindle.

Rosa : Get out!

PWN : Is solidism also a reproach to younger people who are moving away from the book's physical form?

Jethro : I don't thing it's a reproach to young people in any way, it's just the idea of suggesting that there are already positive qualities to print and that it is the beauty of having physical objects and beautiful printed books. It's still a good useful thing to have. And I personally read on a Kindle and I go down on the record saying that. It's really really good for certain things. But for exchanging ideas between friends and swapping books, I don't think that it's going to take over. It's a great way of accessing content but the printed book still has its place.

Le Carmen

Rosa : The least we can do is fight back. Rather than sliding directly into everything being online and Kindles, some young people should at least stand up and say, there is value.

Rosa jumps up all of a sudden. "Sassy!" She greets her friend and immediately turns back to apologize and continue the interview. Many of those coming tonight have heard of the Book Club through Jethro or Rosa, who greet their friends but also people they didn't know. Very quickly, it becomes difficult to find people who have not been welcomed by one or the other.

PWN : Back to the magazine, A Tale of Three Cities. How do you intend to select content? What are the characteristics you are looking for?

Rosa : To be perfectly honest, I'm editor in chief and...well, what we have in common, the reason why our magazine worked at university [research] is that we have similar aesthetic depths. And of course, these things come down to a matter of taste. We said what our taste is clearly in our manifesto and for us it's whether something is compatible with what we think is good. And I don't think we want to be prescriptive at all. We want to publish good work.

PWN : Rosa, in addition to co-founding A Tale of Three Cities, has also just won first prize for her novella, the ..... of Sark. What do you have planned next?

Rosa : We have lots of projects on the go, me and this boy, which are not all necessarily literary, some of them are to be kept secret. But my plan now is to finish the novella, make it as good as I can and then write a novel, probably set in Paris, but not one with Paris in the title.

PWN : What language will a Tale of Three Cities be published in?

Rosa : Because it's set in three cities of which the common language would be English and our editors are English, the magazine will be in English, but we want there to be a flavor of each city. For example, Ralph, who's the Berlin editor, writes short stories. Most of the stories are Berlin-based and they'll be a reference to the Tour de...., they'll be flashes of each language. I think you'll find we want to capture the essence of the city.

Jethro : Poems will be published with side by side translations and the original in English but longer fiction will tend to be in English.

PWN : What kind of readership are you expecting? What are your objectives with the magazine?

Jethro and Rosa: Global domination.

Jethro : To engage with interesting, creative, young people in the three cities. To continue the links between what we think are the most interesting three cities in Europe at the moment for culture.

Rosa : I think it's really important to give young artists a platform. I've been lucky in that I've been published in mainstream publications but the reason we started the magazine is that there are so many young people, young writers, artists who just haven't had that first step. Once they've had that, they can go to other places.

Jethro : Print has a new value now as well because plenty of people are writing for blogs but people are really struggling to get printed.

Rosa : And we all want to see our names in print.

PWN : Do you have any advice for young writers and artists?

Rosa : If you're good, send your work to us!

The Bookclub: the last Wednesday of every month at Le Carmen, 34 rue Duperré, Paris 9th.

Rosa Rankin Gee, 24, graduated in Modern Languages last year and now lives in the 18e arrondissement, in an apartment with a bath in the kitchen. Her novella ‘The Last Kings of Sark’ won Shakespeare & Company’s international Paris Literary Prize. One of Esquire Magazine’s 75 Brilliant Brits of 2010, Rosa also founded Alight Here and the Fun and Beautiful Journal. “She makes sandwiches out of things you don’t normally make sandwiches from, and likes simple adjectives, such as good and bad and fast.”

Jethro Turner, 24, also lives in the 18e, around the corner from Rosa. His day job is with e-books, but he also writes about food, and about not-food. “Like most moralists he is secretly quite sadistic. He takes photos of interesting people and interesting doorframes.” According to GQ.com, he is a photographer who knows how to dress.

Only 24 years old, Rosa had already been named one of Esquire magazine's 75 Brilliant Young Brits 2010 and had just won the Novella Contest. She told me about two new projects she was launching with photographer-writer Jethro Turner: a literary magazine called A Tale of Three Cities and a “bookclub” in a Paris bar called Le Carmen, where erstwhile strangers exchange books.

Rosa Rankin Gee: We came out with this very simple idea together and it's been a way of bringing like-minded people together, meeting really interesting bookish, creative, intelligent young people, so it's perfect. Why it's been a success it that it's been a marriage of events that are normally far more stilted. A conventional book club in the English sense is eight people in a living room talking about one book. And this is a lot looser, more relaxed. There's alcohol involved, there's a far bigger crowd, there's music, there's DJs. I think it has been a happy marriage of giving weight to a normal night out.

PWN : Are there more French or English people who attend?

Jethro Turner: We find it's about 50-50 French and English speakers but then there are Italians, Germans, Portuguese people, so we have a nice mix. Some people do ask, "do we have to bring a book in English?" We say no, we want to encourage people to bring as many different books as possible.

PWN : How did you get the word out about the Book Club?

Rosa : We've been really lucky with PR. It's a lovely, warm, kind of wholesome idea. You can get a lot of mileage out of it. We've been in the New York Times, we've been in all of the Paris blogs. We cultivate very good relationships with them.

PWN : You invented a concept called solidism. What is it?

Rosa : That goes hand in hand with the magazine and it works on two levels: the fact that we really value printed press and we're not going to have any of the content of the magazine online because we think that really affects the way we read and digest something. And also we believe in really specific things, you know? If you go on our website and click the triangle, you can read more about it.

PWN : I'm sorry but I own a Kindle.

Rosa : Get out!

PWN : Is solidism also a reproach to younger people who are moving away from the book's physical form?

Jethro : I don't thing it's a reproach to young people in any way, it's just the idea of suggesting that there are already positive qualities to print and that it is the beauty of having physical objects and beautiful printed books. It's still a good useful thing to have. And I personally read on a Kindle and I go down on the record saying that. It's really really good for certain things. But for exchanging ideas between friends and swapping books, I don't think that it's going to take over. It's a great way of accessing content but the printed book still has its place.

Le Carmen

Rosa : The least we can do is fight back. Rather than sliding directly into everything being online and Kindles, some young people should at least stand up and say, there is value.

Rosa jumps up all of a sudden. "Sassy!" She greets her friend and immediately turns back to apologize and continue the interview. Many of those coming tonight have heard of the Book Club through Jethro or Rosa, who greet their friends but also people they didn't know. Very quickly, it becomes difficult to find people who have not been welcomed by one or the other.

PWN : Back to the magazine, A Tale of Three Cities. How do you intend to select content? What are the characteristics you are looking for?

Rosa : To be perfectly honest, I'm editor in chief and...well, what we have in common, the reason why our magazine worked at university [research] is that we have similar aesthetic depths. And of course, these things come down to a matter of taste. We said what our taste is clearly in our manifesto and for us it's whether something is compatible with what we think is good. And I don't think we want to be prescriptive at all. We want to publish good work.

PWN : Rosa, in addition to co-founding A Tale of Three Cities, has also just won first prize for her novella, the ..... of Sark. What do you have planned next?

Rosa : We have lots of projects on the go, me and this boy, which are not all necessarily literary, some of them are to be kept secret. But my plan now is to finish the novella, make it as good as I can and then write a novel, probably set in Paris, but not one with Paris in the title.

PWN : What language will a Tale of Three Cities be published in?

Rosa : Because it's set in three cities of which the common language would be English and our editors are English, the magazine will be in English, but we want there to be a flavor of each city. For example, Ralph, who's the Berlin editor, writes short stories. Most of the stories are Berlin-based and they'll be a reference to the Tour de...., they'll be flashes of each language. I think you'll find we want to capture the essence of the city.

Jethro : Poems will be published with side by side translations and the original in English but longer fiction will tend to be in English.

PWN : What kind of readership are you expecting? What are your objectives with the magazine?

Jethro and Rosa: Global domination.

Jethro : To engage with interesting, creative, young people in the three cities. To continue the links between what we think are the most interesting three cities in Europe at the moment for culture.

Rosa : I think it's really important to give young artists a platform. I've been lucky in that I've been published in mainstream publications but the reason we started the magazine is that there are so many young people, young writers, artists who just haven't had that first step. Once they've had that, they can go to other places.

Jethro : Print has a new value now as well because plenty of people are writing for blogs but people are really struggling to get printed.

Rosa : And we all want to see our names in print.

PWN : Do you have any advice for young writers and artists?

Rosa : If you're good, send your work to us!

The Bookclub: the last Wednesday of every month at Le Carmen, 34 rue Duperré, Paris 9th.

Rosa Rankin Gee, 24, graduated in Modern Languages last year and now lives in the 18e arrondissement, in an apartment with a bath in the kitchen. Her novella ‘The Last Kings of Sark’ won Shakespeare & Company’s international Paris Literary Prize. One of Esquire Magazine’s 75 Brilliant Brits of 2010, Rosa also founded Alight Here and the Fun and Beautiful Journal. “She makes sandwiches out of things you don’t normally make sandwiches from, and likes simple adjectives, such as good and bad and fast.”

Jethro Turner, 24, also lives in the 18e, around the corner from Rosa. His day job is with e-books, but he also writes about food, and about not-food. “Like most moralists he is secretly quite sadistic. He takes photos of interesting people and interesting doorframes.” According to GQ.com, he is a photographer who knows how to dress.